


Clint Barton Prefers The Background Anyway

by TheoMiller



Series: something bigger [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Casual Sex, M/M, Where Was Clint Barton During Captain America 2?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2064669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheoMiller/pseuds/TheoMiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Clint Barton's absence from several origin stories is explained, and Natasha Romanoff does not have time for Clint and Coulson's shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clint Barton Prefers The Background Anyway

**HULK**

“I don’t think my arrows are gonna do much,” Clint said, squinting down at the giant green creature. “Call it, Coulson?”

“We’ve got work to do elsewhere anyway,” Coulson said.

Natasha _hmm_ ed into the comms. “Do we really want to leave this to Ross? He might do something stupid.”

“The army does like its super soldiers,” Clint added.

“If he does, we’ll handle it. For now, we’re on Stark duty.”

Clint grinned. “That guy’s got style,” he said.

**IRON MAN**

“He’s in a giant doughnut,” Clint reported. “Want me to shoot him, Director?”

“Hold your fire,” Fury replied.

“I wouldn’t _kill_ him. Just remove him from the doughnut. Nothing more than a bruise.” There was a pause. Then, “ _Probably_. I don’t know how that armour will do shrapnel.”

Fury heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Stand your ass down, Hawkeye.”

X-x-X-x-X

Stark mostly kept to the labs, so Clint found himself people-watching instead of perimeter-watching for most of the mission. His eyes landed on another little scene playing out down on the streets nearby. A young black guy in a collared shirt and tie, very snazzy, probably fresh out of college, and a blond guy in Nikes way too expensive for his crappy 7-dollar gym shorts trying way too hard to not seem shifty.

“Aww, mugger, no,” Clint said, but the blond guy was crowding the snazzy guy into a little alley between two restaurants. He could see the gun the blond was holding in one shaky hand.

He set his bow down, intending to return as soon as he stopped the mugger, and sprang to the next rooftop over with ease. Snazzy was fishing through his pockets where he was trapped behind one of the dumpsters. _Looking for his wallet to throw_ , Clint surmised.

He dropped down between them and grabbed Blondie’s wrist before he could fire off a shot. The gun went off, and Blondie yelped when Clint yanked the gun free, and he thought for a moment it was because he’d hurt his wrist. And then he got sprayed in the face with pepper spray and figured, yeah, okay, that’s probably why the dude yelped.

SHIELD had mandatory ‘shrug off pepper spray’ training, but it still stung like a bitch, and when Clint stopped swearing and became aware of his surroundings, he realized Blondie had run off.

“I am so fu—freaking sorry,” Snazzy said. “I just panicked, I, please don’t sue me?”

Clint shook his head. “No, it’s fine, I’m – just let me, gimme a sec. Did, did he get the gun back?”

“Nah, he left it,” the guy sounded relieved instead of terrified now.

“The shot—he didn’t hit anyone?”

“Just the wall. Thank you, seriously, and I am so, so sorry.”

“Hawkeye!” Coulson barked over the comms, and Clint shrugged apologetically as he turned away and held a hand up to his earpiece.

“Yeah, hi, sorry, there was a snafu with pepper spray and a would-be mugger.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“I got maced by a snazzily dressed civilian, but that’s okay, he’s very apologetic,” Clint flashed a thumbs up at Snazzy, who ducked his head. “Hey, want me to ask where he got his tie? Christmas is coming. In, like, six months. But still.”

“Amazon,” Snazzy whispered, and Clint grinned back.

Phil sighed. “Just… get back to the ops base, we’ve got to go to New Mexico.”

“Yessir,” said Clint. He slapped Snazzy on the back and went to go fetch his bow.

**THOR**

“What do you think?” Coulson asked.

Clint paused in drying off, towel still draped over his head, and shrugged. “His bearing’s not military, his moves aren’t conventional, and he really thought he could pick up that hammer. Like, _really_ thought he could do it. Did you see that puppy in the rain look? Waaaaay more effective than mine. Whoever he is, he’s good.”

“Too good to have stayed off SHIELD’s radar this long,” said Coulson.

“Mmhm,” Clint said. “Oh, and, can I have a word in private, sir?”

Coulson rolled his eyes but followed him into the side room filled with weaponry, and Clint pulled him into a kiss that turned filthy very, very quickly. Phil pulled back to bite at Clint’s lip, smoothing it over with his tongue, and then gave him another quick kiss before he strode out of the room saying, “Duly noted, Barton.”

**CAPTAIN AMERICA**

“Hey, Barton, what do you think of these? Natasha refused to say.”

Clint looked up at Coulson, and found a clipboard being pressed into his hands. There was a stack of sketches of a man with a chiseled jaw and a frankly ridiculous shoulder-to-waist ratio. He almost didn’t notice the uniforms, which were the only real difference from page to page, partially because his eyes were blurring with hot tears, and partially for another reason that he totally had, even if he couldn’t think of it.

“Clint?”

He blinked, hard. “They’re, uh. I don’t like this darker one, with just the blue and silver. Stick to the traditional red, white, and blue.”

“That’s what I was thinking!” Coulson said, and Clint was on his feet, chair scraping across the floor, before he could think. “Clint?”

Clint shoved the clipboard at Coulson and stalked away before he said something stupid.

It took Natasha five minutes to show up. She must’ve gotten hung up on something. “You’re being ridiculous,” she said. “Coulson’s a person, Clint, not your favorite spot on the range. Jealousy’s for objects, not people.”

“I’m not _jealous_ ,” Clint spat. “God, can you imagine? Out of everything, that being why I was jealous of Captain freakin’ America?”

“Love is foolish,” shrugged Nat. “I’ve learnt not to analyze it. But you could don’t have to worry about Coulson and Rogers, because you and Coulson are on the exact same page. You just fail to communicate properly, because you’re children.” She made it sound simple. And Nat was very rarely wrong, but she just didn’t _get_ Coulson the way Clint did. Coulson wanted normal, and children, and—whatever else it was normal lives had.

“You’re a child,” Clint mumbled.

Nat sighed and walked away. Clint watched her go, because he was free to sleep with _anyone_ , dammit, he could objectify women all he wanted. Or something. He wasn’t sure a view of Natasha’s ass for a few seconds, no matter how excellent that ass was, would be worth her taking it out of him next time they sparred. But if Coulson was going to be the sparkly, stalkerish fanboy at Captain America’s bedside, Clint would go back to sleeping with Nat. So _there_.

**IRON MAN, part deux**

“Oh, hey, the President was kidnapped,” Clint said, stabbing a fork at the TV. “Y’know, if my sort-of-boyfriend weren’t recovering from a giant stab wound to the chest right now, he’d be all over that.”

Footage of the Iron Man armour blowing up came next, and he swore inventively. “Goddamn _Stark_. What a diva.”

**THOR, part deux**

“Whoa, whoa, turn that up,” Clint said. The nurses had gotten used to him appearing behind them in the nurse’s station, and turned up the volume on their tiny television set.

It was hard to filter out the useless news commentary to understand Selvig, but that, that was definitely some important sounding shit.

“I know that guy,” he told Nurse Kelly, who gave him his anti-anxiety meds in the mornings every other day. “He went crazy the same time I did.”

“You’re not crazy, darlin’, you’re _perfect_ ,” Nurse Randall told him.

Clint high-fived him. “But no, seriously, there’s bad reactions to trauma, I’ve had a lot of trauma, I know this, and there’s trying to sleep upside down because bats are cooler than hawks.”

**CAPTAIN AMERICA, part deux**

Natasha called him while he was cuffing a dude, who was still spouting crap about purifying the heathens, to a radiator in his hotel room. “Can’t talk, mission,” he said.

“SHIELD is compromised,” Natasha said.

“What, the whole thing?”

“Hydra’s pulling at least half the strings, and Fury’s dead,” she replied. “We need you in DC.”

Clint rolled his eyes as he dragged the body of the terrorist who’d just refused to surrender toward the bathtub – easier cleanup – and said, “I think you can handle that. We’ve got plans in place.”

“The Winter Soldier’s back,” she said.

“Get out _now_.”

“Can’t,” she said. “I have to see this one through, Clint.”

“If Rogers doesn’t keep you safe, I’ll kill him,” Clint told her, and then looked down at the remaining terrorist. “What am I talking about, this is Cap, he’ll probably die saving a kitten from a tree, Nat’s fine. Nat, don’t let Cap die, Coulson will cry,” he added to her.

“Dammit, Barton, how hard is it to find a plane and get your ass back here? Stark blew up his damned suits, Bruce is on _holiday_ , I try not to think about what Thor and Jane are doing in Australia, it’s down to us.”

“Unless you want these radical asshats to seize control of Turkey’s capital and blackmail the government into doing whatever it is they think is God’s will, I can’t come. SHIELD can wait.”

“I need my flat iron,” Natasha said.

Clint groaned. “All right, all right, I’ll send a drone. Oh, and, when it’s over, check on Coulson first thing, okay?” he said.

“Deal,” said Natasha, and hung up on him.

He turned to the guy cuffed to the radiator. “She hung up on me,” he said. “Rude.”

**Author's Note:**

> Are you lot feeling spoiled by updates yet?


End file.
